


It’s a Cold New World

by flwrpwr_vampyre



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-21 23:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flwrpwr_vampyre/pseuds/flwrpwr_vampyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's with Tyler when Elena tells him about Jules. Watches his face crumble as he curls in on himself, shoulders shaking as he suppresses sobs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s a Cold New World

**Author's Note:**

> This is mostly unbeta'd so if you spot something let me know. Written for razycrandom girl. Spoilers through the season two finale.

She’s with Tyler when Elena tells him about Jules. Watches his face crumble as he curls in on himself, shoulders shaking as he suppresses sobs. She fights her own grief over Jenna, arms curling around him protectively as Elena dissolves into equally heart wrenching tears.

She doesn’t leave his side. Refuses. His mother wouldn’t even notice if her husband’s ghost showed up and so she just… moves in. She’s the one that makes sure that he eats, showers, sleeps and it hurts her to watch him go through the motions so hollowly.

There’s a funeral for Jules. It’s depressingly small, besides her and Tyler only Bonnie shows up. She looks awful too. Caroline pulls them both close and tries to project _everything is going to be ok_. She’s pretty sure it doesn’t work.

“She came back with me,” Tyler tells her later. “If I hadn’t come back in spite of her warnings she would still be- All she wanted was to help me, take care of me.”

His eyes are red-rimmed. He hasn’t cried since that first night but you certainly couldn’t tell that by looking at him. He doesn’t meet her eyes, staring at the walls of his bedroom.

“If you hadn’t come back I would be dead,” she says quietly. She, of course, doesn’t say that there’s a dark quiet part of her that’s glad it was Jules. He looks at her as though he knows anyway and she smooths his hair back and kisses his forehead to keep it all inside.

She’s taken to sleeping with him. It had started just her sleeping in the same room until one particularly bad night when he’d been thrashing about, clutching at his shirt right above his heart and yelling loud enough to wake, well, the dead. She’s next to him in a flash, shaking him until he wakes up and soothing him as he drifts back into a restless sleep, clutching her too him as though he’s afraid she’ll disappear while he sleeps.

He doesn’t have the nightmares if she’s next to him so she stays and it turns into an every night thing. He doesn’t talk about it so she doesn’t either. She doesn’t ask who told him that Klaus ripped out Jules heart but when he takes up the habit of rubbing over his left pec when he gets stressed she thinks about finding out and killing the person inch by careful inch. She’s willing to bet it was Damon, probably as revenge for Tyler biting him.

If Elena wouldn’t be even more upset she’d kill him regardless. Nothing, none of this, would have happened if it wasn’t for him. She’d just be a normal teenage girl and Tyler would be a normal teenage boy and she wouldn’t feel bad about how much she wants to kiss him when he looks like death warmed over.

Days slide by and it’s easy to push the feelings down, concentrate on being there for whatever he needs. He looks a little less stunned and guilty every day and she doesn’t have to remind him to eat.

Things get a little worse when the next full moon starts drawing closer and when he disappears the day of she is frantic. She finally finds him in the cellar where he first transformed and nearly collapses in relief as she rushes to his side. He’s lounging against a wall, a half empty bottle of tequila in one hand.

“Jesus Tyler, you scared the crap out of me.” She’s checking him over for any cuts or bruises and he stops her, pulling her down so she’s sitting next to him. She has to force herself to not think about how dirty the floor is.

She wraps an arm around him instead and he rests his head on her shoulder. He takes another drag from the bottle and offers it. It’s a little cliche but she takes it and takes a drink anyway.

“I don’t want to,” he says, his voice echoing around the room. “Not again. I don’t care if it’s faster. It still hurts, _hurt_ Jules just as bad as it hurts me and she had been a wolf for years.”

She doesn’t answer right away. She doesn’t know what to say. Sure it sucks to be a vampire but it’s nothing compared to what he goes through. It’s a lot harder to comfort him now that it’s the third time and they both know exactly what it’s like.

“Not to mention that I don’t know any werewolves who’ve lived past 30,” he continues. “You’ll at least have a great few hundred years before someone gets you.”

“You are super depressing,” is what comes out and she’s kicking herself even before the words finish leaving her mouth. He snorts out a laugh.

“And the first person who tries to kill you has to get through me. I’m pretty sure I can easily rip their spinal cord out of their mouth.”

“Unless I kill you because you won’t leave me alone.”

“Seriously? Is this all you think about?”

She feels him smile into her shoulder.

“Maybe,” he admits.

“Well stop ok? You’re going to live forever, you’re not going to kill me and you can’t get rid of me. So there.”

“It’s that simple huh?”

“Yeah, it’s that simple.”


End file.
